A/N: Sorry it took me so long to get this finished. I had it done four days ago, but it was very different than it is now. I didn't like it, so I didn't publish, which I think was the right thing to do. It ended up much better. I have the next chapter written too, but I got up at 5 am and I think I'll take a nap before publishing it. Give you folks a chance to read this one before the next.

"Besides," Peter said, "I thought you liked hurting me." There was an odd gleam in Peter's eye. Perhaps it was angry or stand-offish. Sylar couldn't tell.

He frowned and took Peter's hand in his own again and looked at it. He'd been stung on the index finger of the right hand - a really nasty place to get it. The finger was hot and red, the skin starting to get that shiny look of swollen tissue. He ran his fingers over it lightly, watching Peter's face. He saw the tightening around the eyes, but no other reaction. Peter's pain tolerance had never been in question, though.

"Peter," he said gently. "I might like hurting you, but that's if I am hurting you. On purpose. And I'm in control, so it goes exactly as far as I want it to and no further. Because that's what it is: control. It's about power. Just seeing you hurt is…" He shook his head. "That's not power. It's just you hurt. It's one of my things getting damaged. I don't want to see that. Please. Heal it." Despite the nature of his words being about objectification, Sylar's tone conveyed that he was genuinely upset to see Peter hurt.

One side of Peter's mouth quirked up at that hidden sentiment, but his eyes were dead. "Nathan liked to see me in pain."

Sylar looked at him blankly until he realized why Peter was saying that. He was casting Sylar in the role of Nathan, inviting or expecting him to be what Nathan had been to him. "I am not Nathan." His voice was so low and angry that Peter flinched from it and might have withdrawn, but Sylar still had his hand held firmly in his own.

Peter blinked and sucked in air. He raised his chin and set his feet apart in that old defiance. "I'm not healing it," he said stubbornly, like a teenager standing up to a strict parent. "That would take the sunburn off my back."

Sylar's mouth opened, then closed. He made a scoffing noise. "Peter… that's… it's not that important."

Now it was Peter's turn to look thrown. "What? Like hell that isn't important to you! The first thing you did with me when you got me home was stick that tracking implant in me. You tagged me like a fucking dog. The thing that pissed you off the most with Nathan wasn't what he was doing, but that he was doing it to someone who belonged to you. You're the exact same as Nathan."

"I am not!" Sylar sputtered. Rage surged through him at the unfair comparison. Or at least… he thought it was unfair. Wasn't it? "You little shit!"

Peter laughed at him, right in his face. Sylar had never wanted to deck someone so much in his life… and yet not done it. "I can hold you down and write that on you with a permanent marker if I want to, Peter. It's not going to kill you!"

Peter shrugged with exaggerated indifference. "Neither will this."

"You said it would!"

"No, I said it does sometimes. It's not automatically fatal. Weren't you listening to me when I was reading that to you yesterday?"

Sylar's grip tightened on Peter's hand. "Is that what this is about? My attention wandered for a moment and so you're going to poison yourself as revenge against me?"

Peter smiled patronizingly. "Maybe. What are you going to do about it, master?"

Sylar glared at him. Peter snorted to show how little that scared him and yanked his hand away. Sylar grabbed his forearm and Peter punched him squarely in the nose with everything he had. Sylar was knocked back on his ass, seeing stars for a few seconds before he healed. When he looked up, Peter had moved in to stand over him. "How do you like that, huh?" Peter taunted him.

Sylar shoved him back with telekinesis, knocking Peter into the dining area and nearly to the balcony. The taller man used the moment to regain his feet.

"Oh, no," Peter said, recovering faster. "Don't you even." His body glowed, power shining through his skin and he hung in the air about a foot above the floor.

Sylar held his ground, a lot uncertain about what was going to happen next. He could feel the radiation Peter was giving off, but the nuclear reaction had ramped up lightning fast and then stabilized. There were a few things that could kill him. Getting vaporized was one of them. Oddly, it ran through his mind that if Peter was going to kill him, he'd rather he did it somewhere else. This place had too many good memories. And he realized he'd precipitated the situation that was giving it a bad one. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then let it out. "Rules. Okay. I get it."

"Do you?" Peter said, his words clipped.

"Yes, I get it," Sylar answered, angry but under control. "I shouldn't have shoved you like that." He looked away for a moment, then back at Peter, meeting his eyes. "It was wrong. Now stop it. You're scorching the damn floor."

Peter blinked, nodded shallowly and his almost-painful-to-look-at brilliance faded. He settled back to the floor and a moment later he looked like a normal human being. He shot Sylar sullen, angry looks though. He looked likely to explode in an entirely non-literal fashion, even if he'd backed down from an actual explosion. Peter was certainly in a mood.

"Listen Peter, just heal the finger, okay?"

"Fuck you! Why don't you just leave me the fuck alone? Why are you even still here?"

Sylar stared at him, dumbfounded.

Peter carried on, gesturing widely, sarcastically, "I mean, you got what you wanted. What do you need me for?"

All Sylar could think was that this was exactly like all of Peter's other lightning fast emotional shifts. He was pretty sure those meant something, but he had no idea what that was. Oddly, Peter's childish behavior reminded Sylar starkly that he was an adult here and responding in kind to Peter's drama was not the right course of action.

He gave it a few seconds, breathing slowly and deeply, mastering his emotions. When he thought he was in command of himself, he walked straight over to Peter, exuding every bit of dominance and 'I'm in control here' body language he could. Peter reacted to it like Sylar thought he would, like he always had before: he got his back up, he stiffened and tensed and stuck his chin out stubbornly but he didn't actually do anything. At least, not until Sylar touched him.

Sylar grabbed him by the arm and Peter swung at him again. Sylar had expected that and blocked most of it with his other arm. They had a brief scuffle. Peter hit him several times and Sylar took the blows unflinchingly (because unlike Peter, he healed), which allowed him to accomplish his objective. He got hold of Peter by the neck and shoved him into the wall. After a moment of tense stillness, Peter tried to shove off the wall and they fought again. Sylar got Peter's arm twisted behind his back and flattened him against the barrier once more.

This time he spoke as soon as Peter quit fighting. "Stop it, Peter. You have to stop this. One of us is going to lose our temper again and do something we can't take back. If this keeps up, it's going to be me and I will be so sorry." Peter had remained still to listen to him. At the end he slumped a little, defeated.

Sylar wrapped his hand around Peter's neck, his long-fingered grip tightening painfully and pulling him over to a chair. He put him in it. "Stay there." He went to the bar and pulled over the stack of papers. He sorted through them quickly, angling his body so Peter was in his peripheral vision. He found what he wanted: the pamphlet that warned about dangerous local wildlife.

He opened it to the part on scorpions. There were six different pictures, all of fairly low quality. He looked at the one in the bowl that was struggling vainly to climb up the slick sides. He had no idea what kind it was. He recalled Peter had only mentioned one type of treatment, so perhaps they all had the same effects. He skimmed past the descriptions of the beasties to find that section.

He honestly had not paid attention when Peter was talking about it because it had never occurred to Sylar that it mattered. They could both regenerate. The idea that one of them would be so passive aggressive as to refuse to heal hadn't been in his mind. He read it quickly, not going past the part about what to do if shock set in. If that happened, he'd read the rest.

"Okay." He put the paper down and went back to Peter. "Come on. Up." He hauled him up and brought him to the sink. Peter dug in his heels and resisted, but since he didn't actually fight, Sylar just drug him over there by force. Peter pouted, lower lip sticking out and everything. Sylar refrained from drawing attention to how juvenile Peter was acting, which he thought took a great deal of restraint.

Sylar washed Peter's hand under cold water. He chilled a clean wet washcloth and wrapped it around the finger. He got the first aid kit off the wall and found an appropriate ointment. He unwrapped the towel and applied it, then chilled the towel again and rewrapped it. Peter stood there silently, watching Sylar as he worked. He'd stopped being petulant after Sylar got down the first aid kit and had shifted to considering.

Sylar got out Benedryl, Tylenol and a glass of water. He put them in front of Peter and ordered him, "Take these."

Peter picked up the pills and gave Sylar an odd look. "It matters to you?"

"Yes, Peter," Sylar said, exasperated. "It matters."

"What'll you do if I don't?"

"Peter…" Sylar gritted his teeth and looked heavenward. He took a deep breath again. It wasn't enough, so he took another. "Peter, I will worry about you and be upset. I'll bother you about it until it's clear you're going to be fine. And if my concern for you doesn't matter to you, then…" He shook his head. "Then I'm going to think long and hard about what that means for how you feel about me."

Peter took the pills. Afterwards, he put the glass down. "Why didn't you just make me heal?"

"What? How?"

"I don't know," he said, shrugging. "I'm sure you could have thought of something."

Sylar blinked at him. "Why…" He narrowed his eyes, not liking where this was going. "Is this some sort of kinky sex game?"

Peter snorted. "No, usually it was just torture. Though sometimes there was sex involved with that too."

Sylar continued to be lost at this. "Are you saying you want me to do something like that to you?"

"No! No. I just… I thought you would. If… you know, if you couldn't make me do what you wanted."

"I'm… Peter, I'm not here to make you do what I want!" He furrowed his brows. That wasn't really right. He did want Peter to do what he wanted. That was kind of the point of all this - to get Peter to do things Sylar wanted him to do. But forcing him to do it… that wasn't the same thing. Or maybe it was. He stood there confused for a beat before shaking it away. He was beginning to lose his cool again.

"I've had enough of this passive aggressive, sulky bullshit, Peter!" Sylar said harshly. "I don't know what you're playing at, but I am not going to compete with your dead fucking brother for your affections. If that's what this is about, then there's no reason for me to even be here."

Sylar backed up a step and made a frustrated, impotent gesture. He stalked off to the balcony, leaning against the rail and scowling at the tropical paradise they were in. He didn't like the tightness in his chest, the fury and frustration and disgust that Peter thought Sylar should fall neatly into treating him like Nathan had.

Even more, he didn't like the parallels of how he was treating Peter like Nathan had. Of course he'd intended to exploit the pattern deliberately, but that was before he'd seen it, before he'd been repulsed by really internalizing what he had been doing. He wanted to be better than that. He wanted to be better than that and Peter wasn't letting him.

He heard Peter pad along behind him and pause next to one of the recliners. "Master?"

"What?" Sylar snapped grumpily.

Peter came up behind him and stroked his back. Sylar turned, put his hand in the middle of Peter's chest and pushed him. "Get away from me, Peter. I'm done." His voice wasn't angry; it was just supremely uninterested.

The expression on Peter's face became stricken as he realized the implications of Sylar's mood. Sylar not being interested in him was devastating - quite a bit more than Sylar had intended. "No! Please! I'm so sorry." He went to his knees, even though Sylar just rolled his eyes and turned back towards the ocean. "I'm so sorry," Peter murmured. "I shouldn't have done it. I'm sorry. I just wanted… to see if you cared. Please forgive me." He sounded frightened and very sincere.

"Fuck you," Sylar said, but his voice wasn't quite as hard as it had been before. He cursed himself for that weakness. If he could purge that feeling, he knew, he would just teleport out of here and he'd be on his own. Peter was right: he had all of Peter's abilities. He didn't necessarily need Peter. He just wanted him and he didn't want him if he was going to be this way. The way Peter was sniveling on the floor now made him feel guilty and he didn't think he'd done anything wrong. It was all Peter's fault, after all. Wasn't it?

Foremost in his mind was how he didn't want to live with someone who would so automatically promise death if he didn't comply. Because yes, while Sylar admitted he shouldn't have pushed him with telekinesis, he also thought Peter shouldn't have responded by threatening to level the whole island. This was the third time Peter had overreacted - breaking his neck for calling him a freak, manhandling and teleporting him because he didn't like his opinion on sports and now this! Sylar fumed.

Sylar watched the distant surf and made a determined effort to yank his thoughts from the what-ifs of Peter going nuclear and all of his lover's missteps and faults. Instead he tried to consider things they'd done that had been pleasant. There'd been a lot of that. He thought about how much he'd enjoyed diving and flying and making sand castles, of all things. He'd liked looking at the stars and kissing and touching and stimulating and responding.

And the sex had been incredible. He'd never let another man have him that way and he was sure Peter had been far more careful and considerate of his amateur status than most others would have been. It wasn't casual, that was for sure. Peter loved him. That was why he was bowing and scraping on the floor. He knew he'd pushed it too far. Peter was just… immature. He behaved like an oversexed fifteen year old - which thought drew Sylar's thinking to what Peter had said about his past. His intuitive aptitude drew a definite connection between the two, but it didn't give him any immediate insight as to how to change things. It wasn't that Peter was broken - he was just changed.

He glanced back. Peter was on the floor, face down in a traditional posture of prostration: bent forward with his forehead on the deck, hands to either side of his head, palms up. It was a lot weird, but so was Peter. Sylar looked away, leaving Peter there for the time being. He was still too angry to deal with it constructively, but he was calming down.

Minutes passed. Peter's complete silence underscored his sincerity. He'd always been patient. Sylar wasn't. He turned and walked past Peter, ignoring him. Peter fell back on their role behavior, crying out desperately, "Master! Please…"

Sylar got the bowl with the scorpion in it. He carried it to the balcony and tossed it off, watching it fall to the ground below, to live for another day. He turned and looked at Peter, who had raised his head to watch. He ducked it again immediately, flattening himself. Sylar walked past him once more.

"I want only to serve you, master," he groveled.

"No, you don't. Cut it out, Peter. I'm not Nathan. If you want to be with Nathan, then… that ship's sailed. It's too late." Peter made a stifled sob. Sylar went on, "You're just fucking shit out of luck." Sylar turned around at the kitchen bar and leaned against it, watching Peter as the smaller man stole glances at him while maintaining his submissive posture.

"I don't want to be with Nathan. I want to be with you."

"You fooled me."

"Sylar… please… Please let me be with you. Please. I don't want anyone else." His voice quavered pitifully.

A hot surge of anger flared back up in Sylar's chest as he couldn't hear those words without thinking about Nathan ordering Peter not to fuck anyone without his permission - not to be with anyone, not to want anyone. He walked over to Peter, grabbed him by the hair and pulled him up to his lips, ignoring the pained yelp Peter made and giving him a bruising, angry kiss. He had no idea why he did it, as it wasn't really an answer to the issue.

"What do you want from me?" he asked roughly when he pulled Peter back from him.

For his part, Peter was coiled like a spring - tense all over and trembling. Anger suffused his voice and he answered immediately, "Everything! I want all of you, Sylar, and everything you are. I killed him for you, damnit! Don't you see that?" He pushed forward past the pain of Sylar's grip in his hair, kissing him again.